Nina Ricci / Resort 2015

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The great three-volume National Geographic 125 Years tomes set Peter Copping thinking about a fresh spin on the Ricci woman for resort. “We know what the Parisian woman is in her context at home,” he said, “but outside France?” So he plays with the idea of appropriating elements from different global cultures and adding them into the Ricci mix of urbane elegance and ruffled femininity. American sportswear, for instance, makes an appearance in the black leather biker jacket sleeves and peplum of a crisply tailored black-and-white tweed suit with the short, flirty skirt silhouette that is a leitmotif of the collection. A chic white-on-black fleck print that would be right at home on the Avenue Montaigne is actually inspired by the white dot makeup of the Makonde tribespeople of Mozambique and Tanzania, and a brilliant marled summer-weight tweed by the baskets in a Brazilian hippie market.

Pretty sundresses and T-shirts in panels of different cotton lace patterns, meanwhile, evoke festive Mexican clothing, whilst a simple pleat-bib shirt with hook-and-eye fastening has its roots in Amish dressing. Bold florals—sometimes used on the reverse so that they look sun faded—are taken from 1950s photographs of Cuban ladies. The same floral print, of tulips, old-fashioned roses, or daisies, might appear in the same garment in sheer and solid fabric iterations, so a crepe dress might have chiffon sleeves, all in a matching design.

Those signature Ricci laces—guipure, Chantilly, or thick cotton—as well as eyelet are often mixed together for stylish duster clothes, or in little dresses that resemble camisole slips, sometimes with hems or fluttering sleeves prettily weighted with dotted pearl beads. Although there are the long evening dresses at which Copping excels, ruffled with chiffon and lace insets, or sleek with a satin stripe down the side to evoke a man’s tuxedo dress pant, there is also the surprise of a white lace dungaree—a very cool way to think about dressing up on a warm holiday evening. As Copping explains, he wanted “a dressed-down spirit—to take the stuffiness out of things.”